Lets Mix things up!
by RockerRabbit
Summary: Maka and Soul have reached a point where they just can't stand each other any more. Luckily for them, Stein devises a plan; let's switch partners for a month! Will Soul and Maka make up, or choose to stay with their new partners?
1. The Announcement

HEYY!I just got permission to finish this story! From Yoru no Yoku! So chapter1-4 arent mine there Yoru no Yoku! So heres the first chapter

"SOUL!" Maka screeched so loudly that the neighbors would probably start complaining soon. It wasn't the first time either. This past week, the silver-haired weapon had been getting on her nerves _constantly._ First it was burning the dinner she had worked on all day, then it was spilling water on her favorite book, then it was walking in on her while she was changing (and daring to make a comment about her non-existent chest, and that it was to the same effect as walking in on a half-naked _boy_), and so on and so forth. But this, _this_ was the final straw.

"M- Maka, I… help?"

She proceeded to condemn him to an extreme 'Maka-chop' that sent him flying through the window.

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

Maka gave her partner the silent treatment on the way to school.

"Come on, Maka! The last few times I understood, but this? It wasn't my fault!"

Maka stayed silent.

"I mean, it wasn't like I _asked_ Blair to jump me!"

Maka said nothing.

"Especially not naked! I hate that cat, and I want her gone! She's too distracting!"

Maka didn't speak a word.

"And why is it that you never punish _Blair,_ who instigates it all, and you hit _me_ who was just innocently getting ready for school? How is that fair!"

Soul chanced a glance at his meister. He sighed when he realized that she probably wasn't even listening to him.

"Fine! Two can play at this game!"

Neither of them spoke for the remaining of the trip.

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

At school, the tension between them was so great that it could be cut with a knife.

Black Star nudged his partner. "Yo, Tsubaki, you think it's safe to talk to them?"

Tsubaki risked a glance at her friend Maka who was so angry that you could almost see the flames rising off her skin. She regretfully shook her head. "I wouldn't risk it" She told her blue-haired roommate who groaned.

"Come ON, they've been at this for two _weeks_ you'd think that they'd kiss and make up by now!" The immature meister said loudly, as Tsubaki tried to shush him.

Maka and Soul both whirled around in their seats to glare at the pair, and Tsubaki must have said 'sorry' about a million times before they turned back around.

She sighed. She really liked her friend Maka, and even though she didn't know Soul as a person very well, she was used to thinking of them as part of a team. Now she didn't know what to think. She had asked Liz and Patty about it a few days ago (maybe the problem had to do with romance?) but neither sister was very helpful. "Just wait it out" was Liz's advice, while Patty had been rattling off about something irrelevant.

Whatever it was, she just wanted everything to go back to the way it was before.

Maka, on the other hand, just wanted Soul to disappear. She was so sick of him always messing around, of that smirk, and of the fact that calling her 'tiny tits' seemed to give him some sort of amusement. Well she was through. If she had a choice, she would partner up with the first available weapon that could match her wavelength.

Her musing was cut short as Stein wheeled into the room. "Okay everyone, quiet down, we've got a lot to get through today." The murmuring in the classroom stopped immediately, for you never knew when Professor Stein was going to choose _you _for his next experiment. "Since all of you have pretty much reached a stand still in your training, I have devised a new tactic to make you appreciate your partner a little more"

Both Soul and Maka scoffed. Yeah, that would be the day.


	2. New Partners

"WHAT?" The screech was voiced by nearly everyone in the room. Stein just smiled and tightened his screw.

"Ain't nobody touching my Tsubaki, but ME!" Black Star crowed, as his partner blushed.

"What about the wavelengths?" Ox called out.

"No way in HELL!" Said someone else.

Stein listened for about a maximum of five minutes before holding up his hand. One by one, everyone shut up.

"Now, now" He said calmly. "No one ever said that it was permanent. Just one measly month. I think that you are all mature enough to handle it. And as for your wavelengths…. I have already thought of that. In fact, I have already decided your new partners, and they will be on the announcement board after lunch. Now, lets dissect this gorgeous specimen I found on the way to work today."

Needless to say, it wasn't like anyone could concentrate for the rest of the lesson.

Maka smirked. This was perfect! Maybe she wouldn't be getting rid of him for real, but this was the next best thing. Stein was a genius!

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

"Okay!" Stein said as he snapped his book shut, "before we switch partners, I want to explain the rules. Number one, you cannot live together. The one who owns the apartment or house can stay, and out of courtesy, the other must move in to their knew partner's home."

Stein ignored the murmuring.

"Number two, you cannot hang out with one another after school. It defeats the purpose if you see your partner every day. Number three, if you go out on missions, you can split the number of souls between the two of you, and if you get an odd number, the weapon gets it. Number four, no begging or complaining about the setup. If the two of you are not compatible on a normal conversational level, that is not my problem. Number five, _if_ the pairing works out better than the one you had before, you can keep the arrangement."

"Tsubaki, you won't leave me, will you!" Black Star cried, clinging to her arm with tears in his eyes.

"Of course not!" The Camilla flower smiled.

Soul leaned back in his chair. He couldn't decide if he liked this arrangement or not. On one hand, it would get him away from Maka for a while, which would be nice. But he didn't know if he liked the thought of her holding some other weapon in her hands, especially if it was a guy. Oh damn, that brought on a whole nother list of problems. He defiantly didn't want another guy walking through his house, touching his things, eating his partner's cooking. He shook his head. Whatever, what will be will be.

Stein tightened his screw. "Are you all done talking now? Good. Now here are your arrangements. Oh, and Kid, you don't have to switch. There were plenty of weapons that could match your wavelength, but none were symmetrical and I didn't want to have to wheel you off to the infirmary.

The class laughed as Kid sighed. "Very funny" He said out loud, while doing a happy dance inside. He was spared from Asymmetry!

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

"Alright, so those are your new groups. I hope that you are happy with them, because you're stuck with them!"

Maka looked down at the small girl that she had been paired with, one who she had never noticed before. She looked shy, and was very small, with odd purple hair and green eyes.

"Hello!" The taller girl ventured, "What's your name?"

"L…l….l…. Lyssa" she stuttered.

"Lyssa! That's a pretty name! What kind of weapon are you?"

"A d-d-d-double b-bladed staff." Lyssa said with her seemingly characteristic stutter.

Maka nodded with a smile. That would be good, still the same concept as a scythe, but with two blades instead of one, and more equally balanced. If she made compensations in her fighting stances, this should work out just fine.

Meanwhile, Soul was getting used to _his_ new partner.

"You're a guy," the brown-haired meister said tactfully (not).

"Yeah." Soul said, wondering if this guy was an idiot.

"I was hoping that you'd be some hot girl or something"

"Sorry to disappoint."

The meister scoffed. "I'm Jack"

"Soul"

"Wassup, Soul"

Wishing I could kill you where you stand, Soul thought, but instead said, "Nothing. So, I guess I'm staying at your place."

"On the couch"

"No shit."


	3. Getting used to things!

A few days after the partner switch, Liz, Patty, Maka, and Tsubaki were hanging out after class.

"So, guys, what's it like having new partners?" The older gun asked.

Tsubaki sighed. "I don't know. He's nice and everything, but not as energetic. He doesn't eat too much so a lot of my food goes to waste. And we don't talk much… it's just not the same." She shook her head sadly. "I never knew how much I'd miss Black Star so much! What about you, Maka?"

Maka blinked. "Oh, Lyssa, she's nice. Quiet. Very clumsy though, and she's always apologizing for something or other. She's like a little puppy." She smiled at the image of a large-pawed purple-haired dog. However, the smile faltered as she remembered the first moment that she had started to miss Soul.

It was odd, really. That such a small thing was enough to nearly move her to tears. She had walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth, but when she opened the cabinet, she realized that Soul's hair gel was gone. Maybe it was because the gel was such a trademark of her partner's that she noticed it first. Even so, it was enough to send her running to his room, where she saw that most of his stuff was gone, only his furniture, some clothing, and his school books left behind. Her first thought was 'I should get those to him' and then she laughed at his carelessness. But it was one of those half-hearted laughs. All of a sudden she had felt the death-scythe's absence like a raw wound. Like Tsubaki, she never knew that she could miss her partner so much.

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

"Yo, Soul!" Black Star yelled as he tossed the basketball to the juvenile death-scythe.

He caught it easily and passed it to Kid. The three were playing a scrimmage match, because they didn't have enough members for a real match since Black Star and Soul couldn't see Tsubaki and Maka.

"So, Black Star, how is the new partner?" Soul asked.

"What, you mean the sadistic bitch?"

Kid dropped the basketball, and both he and Soul stared at Black Star in shock. Never had he used such words so casually before!

"It's true! She's always harassing me to 'be quiet' or 'do this, do that', 'shut up', 'what kind of an assassin are you', as if she was in charge of a big person like me! She's always mad at me about something!"

Kid reached over to pick the ball back up. "Well, how many souls have you collected?"

Black Star blinked. "That's not the point."

"How many?"

"Okay, okay, ten, are you happy now?" Black Star caught the ball in his hands and threw it to Soul.

Soul smirked. "That's more than you have ever gotten with Tsubaki!"

"I don't care! I want her back! She was so awesome, and she never yelled at me for anything!"

The other two boys laughed.

"Oi, what about you, Soul?" Asked the blue-haired ninja.

Soul's expression darkened considerably. Kid and Black Star took a few steps back in alarm.

"The guy is an asshole." He said simply before throwing the ball so hard at Kid that it knocked him over. Then Kid realized that he now had a bruise on the left side of his face, which caused him to cough blood and pass out, and Liz and Patty had to be called to pick him up.

Soul wasn't lying. All that Jack had done since they had been partnered up with him is piss him off. _"Dude, why do you wear gel in your hair?" "Dude, why do you wear an apron when cooking? You look like a sissy. Why are you cooking anyway?" "Dude, you play piano? What a pu_ssy." "_Dude, your scythe form is lame"_

If he had to hear 'dude' one more time, someone was going to get set on fire.


	4. Suspicions

With an explosion of smoke, the kishin-egg's body evaporated, leaving nothing but a floating red orb in its wake. Maka sighed and wiped her forehead as Lyssa changed back into her human form to claim the soul. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she thought back to the last few battles.

"Wait, isn't this supposed to be _my_ soul? Didn't you get the last one?"

Lyssa froze, her whole face wide with adorable shock as if she couldn't imagine the fact that Maka had asked such a thing.

"D-does Maka-chan think that Lyssa-chan would steal from her? Lyssa-chan would never be that mean…" The younger girl bit her lip and tapped the toe of her shoe behind her in a cute posture.

Maka frowned, but ultimately, she couldn't resist the cute puppy-eyes that the younger girl was giving her, and let the girl claim the soul as her own.

She turned away as Lyssa consumed her prize, and surveyed the battlefield that they'd just fought on. She couldn't help but think about how it felt to fight with Soul; the flawless meshing of their wavelengths, the way that his weapon form balanced evenly in her hands, the small verbal fights they would engage in as Soul would comment that he could see up her skirt from the angle she was holding him at… she missed him. She never would admit that out loud, but it was true. And it wasn't like Lyssa was a bad partner, not at all, but there was something different about her. Something that kept Maka from being able to totally connect to her wavelength. She would have to confer with Stein about this fact. But, for the time being, she would keep an eye on this little girl named Lyssa.

For it was true that Maka was beginning to distrust her. The lying about the souls was one thing, but small items had been disappearing from the apartment. Luckily, she kept her and Soul's rooms locked whenever she wasn't in them, because it seemed lately that anything of value that could fit in a pocket had gone missing. Of course, the girl denied any accusations, and Maka didn't have any proof… but things weren't going missing in the rooms that Lyssa wasn't allowed in either. She never believed that she would miss Soul… but she missed having someone she could trust as a partner.

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

Jack wasn't only an asshole; he was also a terrible meister. Okay, Soul got that it was difficult to wield a scythe. The balance was different than most weapons, and the oversized blade took some time getting used to. But _honestly_, the guy should have gotten the hang of it by now. Soul couldn't help but wince every time he was dropped onto harsh cobblestones, or when Jack slipped and cut himself by accident. It was a miracle (mostly of Soul's doing) that they managed to harvest any Kishin-eggs at all!

At lest Jack was honest about it; never trying to take too many for himself, and sometimes giving an extra to Soul when he didn't feel like carrying it back home in his hands to store in the special case Stein had given them. But, really, that didn't make up for all the other crap he had to wade through. Honestly, he couldn't help but think that, for all her faults, Maka had known exactly how to wield him.

Finally, Jack somehow managed to slice through the monster, which promptly imploded into the red ball. Soul flashed back to his human form, and tossed the orb at Jack. He didn't feel like eating tonight; for some reason, it just didn't appeal to him.

.:S.E-*-M.A:.

The walk home was always filled with silence. This was how Maka and Lyssa spent most of their time: both wary and unsure of the other. Lyssa _had _to know that Maka was on to her (there was no way she couldn't), but it seemed like neither side was actually willing to bring it up. Maka finally opened her mouth, about to lay it all out on the line, but then she froze. She knew the sound of those footsteps. Lyssa stopped to look up at her curiously, but Maka kept her eyes glued on the horizon, until the person had cleared the top of the hill. Maka's heart jumped into her throat as her suspicions were confirmed.

"Soul…"


End file.
